


Unfamiliar

by CurrieBelle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mild Language, Wildemount Campaign, emetophobia tw, not too shippy just some hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 10:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13522008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurrieBelle/pseuds/CurrieBelle
Summary: After the slaying of the Nergaliid, Fjord's unknown patron grants him a new spell. Fjord seeks help from the nearest unwashed wizard in order to master it.





	Unfamiliar

Nott’s plan had spiraled out of her control uncommonly quickly. As she counted her share of the devil-toad’s bounty, she wondered aloud how much a new pair of boots would cost. She wanted to buy something nice for Caleb, she said, kneading one of the coins in her long, bony fingers. A thank-you gift for being brave and sticking around, even when things looked grim.

Jester had grabbed both of Nott’s hands, and decided on the spot that the present would be a surprise from both of them, and that she would pay all the gold in the world to make Caleb’s clothes a little less smelly. The mention of shopping drew Molly to their table like sugar-water drew bees, and the three of them started to imagine more and more elaborate outfits.

“I think he should be blue,” Jester declared. “All blue robes, like a big magic blueberry!”

“He’s scrawny as an alley-dog, up in the shoulders,” Molly added. “It’s got to have a heavy collar, one of those big half-circle ones like you see on the court wizards.”

“And long sleeves?” Nott supplied, fully taken in. “Big sleeves that’ll whoosh out when he casts magic?”

“Yes! He could hide Frumpkin in them!” Jester added shrilly, and Molly threw his head back with a peal of delighted laughter.

At that point, Beau had slouched over in her seat towards Fjord. Though the two of them were seated just on the opposite side of the table, it might as well have been on the opposite side of the world from their colourful friends. “Okay,” Beau said flatly, “one of us has to make sure Caleb doesn’t find out, and the other has to make sure these three idiots don’t dress him up like a magic godsdamn maypole.”

“Flip a copper for it?” Fjord suggested.

Beau’s string of bad luck held; she had lost the coin toss, and with increasingly dramatic groans, she’d shepherded the other three out into the street. She kicked the door open and snapped, “the blue’s _my_ thing, okay?”

As the door closed, Jester retaliated, “You don’t _own_ blue!”

And that was why Fjord was sitting alone in the inn, expressing his heartfelt thanks to a copper coin. He flicked it into the air once more, caught it, and left it with a handful of others on the table. Luck wore off a copper quickly; it was best to pass it on.

Caleb had not come down for breakfast yet, and Fjord assumed he was still asleep. Either he was hung over from the previous night – Trostinwald had thrown him a friendly ale-tasting as thanks for slaying the devil-toad all on his own, and Caleb had indulged more than usual – or he actually did need more sleep than the rest of them. Fjord climbed the stairs two at a time, trying not to let his excitement show.

Fjord had more than one reason to be happy about winning the coin toss. The night before, he had woken into another dream.

That was the only way to put it. Those dreams were different from normal dreams. He felt them vividly as the waking world, vividly as reality. The crushing blue and sour salt of the ocean, the deep-sea roar, his body sinking, sinking like an anchor, and the light fading above – it was all as sharp and clear as the inn walls around him, as the smell of last night’s ale and the sound of his knock on Caleb’s door.

It was far from the first time he’d had a dream like that, and he knew what it meant. Each time he had it, he sunk lower and lower, and he drew closer to the monstrous and unknowable thing below him. He drew closer to its unearthly energy. He _learned_ more. This time, he had felt a burst of energy inside him – a gift that had not been given shape yet. He knew he could use that energy, pour it out like water, into a shape of his choosing.

And if he could choose the shape, well – he had something in mind. When he woke properly, he had decided he liked the idea so much that he’d rushed out of the inn around dawn and spent ten gold on a parcel of summoner’s herbs and incense. A good student, he reasoned, would be prepared. If his instincts were wrong, Caleb could always use the herbs himself.

Caleb opened the door. His hooded eyes were barely open. His russet-red hair was more disheveled than usual, a few pillow-made peaks sticking up on one side. He was underdressed, down to a black tunic and raggedy pants – probably the clothes he had slept in. Caleb was walking, but he looked as if he hadn’t quite regained consciousness yet.

“Uh, hey. Morning.” Fjord said. “Mind if I come in?”

The door swung wide, and Caleb beckoned him forward. Fjord followed, trying not to move too quickly, keeping his arms folded tight across his chest. The beds in the room were unmade, the sheets rumpled and upturned. Caleb sat heavily down on the nearest one. Two spellbooks, still in their leather holsters, lay on the pillow. Caleb rested one hand on them, absent-mindedly drumming on the cover. With the other, he tried to rake his hair into some kind of order. The whole time, he said nothing.

“So, Caleb,” Fjord said, too quickly, too brightly. “You know that thing you do, the one spell that makes Frumpkin change his shape?”

Caleb heaved a massive, creaking yawn, and then answered, “Mmhm.”

“It’s the same spell that’ll bring him back if he’s – y’know, if he gets hurt?”

“Mmhm,”

“D’you think you could teach it to me?”

The question finally broke through Caleb’s late-morning haze. His drowsy expression sharpened – his sleepy eyes narrowed. The transformation was so sudden, Fjord couldn’t help but wonder if his exhaustion was partly an act. “You want to summon your own familiar?” Caleb asked.

“Yup.”

With a sigh, Caleb mirrored Fjord’s posture, folding his arms across his chest. The gesture pressed Caleb’s ribs against the fabric of his tunic, and Fjord almost flinched at how clearly he could see them. The next order of business after the ritual would be breakfast. A very generous breakfast.

“You have the talent for it, that much I can tell,” Caleb said. “Although the materials are not cheap.”

“I got some already,” Fjord admitted. “Left them back in my room. We just need a pot and some coal, right?”

“Right,” Caleb said, drawing the word out.

Fjord flashed him a hopeful smile. So much for not sounding too eager.

After a moment of consideration, Caleb nodded to himself and stood, taking his leather holsters with him. He shouldered them on in a fluid, practiced gesture. “Okay,” he sighed. “Let’s see what we can do.”

While Fjord gathered a fistful of charcoal from the fireplace, Caleb shuffled up to the innkeeper to ask to borrow a brass pot. She disappeared behind the tavern-bar and emerged with a sizable one, practically a vat, setting it on the bar with a proud thud. Caleb looked a little stunned to have his request granted so easily. His hand, which had been reaching for his coin purse, jumped back up into an awkward wave that turned into an even more awkward handshake with the innkeeper.

Fjord watched, amused. Caleb scuttled back up the stairs, red-faced. Apparently he wasn’t used to being a hero yet.

They arranged the supplies on the floor of Fjord’s room, and as they worked, Fjord completely gave up on restraining his enthusiasm. “So, will mine be a cat like yours?” he asked, setting the chunk of charcoal in the pot.

“Maybe,” Caleb said. He broke off a narrow piece of charcoal, and scrawled a series of arcane runes onto the floor with it as he spoke. “But it is not always a cat. The first form it takes will be the form it prefers – ah, in a sense, the form it wants to introduce itself as. ‘Hello, I am your familiar, I would like to be a cat if you can manage it.’ You know.” He winced at his own bizarre explanation. “Here, you can do the other half. The symbols are the same.”

He held out the charcoal. Fjord took it gingerly. Caleb wiped his soot-smudged hands on his filthy coat.

Fjord knelt beside the pot, and copied the symbols as carefully as he could. He tried to memorize them, although they meant nothing to him; it was not a language he understood.

“It will also be a spirit that finds you companionable,” Caleb continued, out of nowhere. “So, in a sense, your familiar reflects your character.”

Caleb gave a languid, long-limbed stretch, and then flopped straight to the floor, landing cross-legged. He slouched forward, fingers raking through his hair again. He wore an expression of polite disinterest.

“Yeah,” Fjord said, stifling a laugh. “I coulda guessed.”

Privately, he wondered how far the similarities extended. Without a doubt, if Fjord hadn’t woken him, Caleb would still be napping in a puddle of sunshine somewhere. Maybe he’d eat more if they fed him some tuna sandwiches. Maybe he liked having a spot behind his ears scratched.

“Are you ready to start?” Caleb asked.

“Right, sorry, yeah – let’s do this.”

The ritual itself was fairly simple, almost tedious. After the initial incantation – which Caleb copied out from his book, syllable by syllable, and had Fjord read aloud – the herbs had to be lit and burned for the rest of the hour. From the first sweet-smelling spark of incense, Fjord felt something unnatural at work in the inn room. The smoke did not dissipate, but gathered around the rim of the brass pot as if drawn to it, swirling in a thick white cloud. Caleb watched each incense stick burn to ash, and then lit another, adding more and more smoke to the mixture. Some of the perfume escaped the cloud, and after a while, the entire room smelled sweet, clean, and summery – a combination that made Fjord think of a pond, or flowers by a river.

When the last of the incense was burned, Caleb tapped Fjord urgently on the shoulder, and pointed to the incantation scrawled below. Fjord repeated it, stumbling over the words a bit – but with the last word, something connected, and the charcoal sigils under his hands flared up in swift bursts of dusty light. The smoke scattered.

In silence, they both leaned over the brass pot. The lump of coal inside glowed white. Fjord was mesmerized, and could not look away – but he did feel Caleb clap him on the shoulder again, in congratulations.

The glow faded, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a pop, the coal burst into a long, lithe, wriggling form, scattering flakes of charcoal across the room. Fjord and Caleb both staggered back with startled cries, as the pot rattled and spun in place. Then, with a final, powerful thrash, the creature knocked the bowl clean over, launching itself onto the floor and sending the vessel skittering away.

It was a fish. A long, tubelike fish, about the length of Fjord’s forearm, with a bluish-black coat and a white underbelly, long, stately whiskers, and a proud orange-red fin. Caleb crawled forward on his hands and knees, asking incredulous questions to himself in a language Fjord did not know. Watching the fish beat its tail into the ground, making repeated _thwack-thwack-thwack_ noises, Fjord thought he should warn Caleb to back away.

Unfortunately, he did not come to that conclusion fast enough, as the fish launched itself into the air with impressive strength and landed a clean, solid slap across Caleb’s face.

Caleb staggered back, looking stunned.

“Aw, shit,” Fjord said. “Y’okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, get some – find some water, or something!”

There was a pitcher on Fjord’s bedside, which was thankfully still full. While the fish flailed around in a fury, its tail pounding against the floor, he upended the pitcher into the brass pot. “Hold on, hold on there,” he called, setting the pitcher aside. Nothing for it – he reached out and tried to snatch the fish up by its tail, only to receive another whack for his trouble. Cursing, and wringing out his stinging hand, Fjord waited for a moment in between strikes, and then pinned the fish’s tail under his hand. At last, he managed to scoop his familiar up from the floor and toss it into the brass pot.

The fish immediately calmed. It made a slow, silken loop in its tank. Then, once settled, it paddled slightly backwards, and glanced up at Fjord. Its round mouth popped open and closed in curious little o-shapes. Fjord knew a handful of things immediately. Firstly, he could tell that he was looking into the eyes of a creature that had cheerfully pledged him its undying loyalty. Second, he realized by the markings on her stomach that his familiar-fish was a female catfish. And lastly, he realized that even if he could easily recreate this spirit with ten gold and a lump of coal, he would immediately skewer anyone who tried to hurt her.

“Aw,” he said. “Hey there, little lady.”

The catfish rolled onto her back, exposing her stomach, her fins flapping excitedly.

Fjord looked up. Caleb was sprawled on the ground, leaning on one elbow, a strange expression on his face. Once their eyes met, Caleb burst into rough, wheezing laughter. Fjord, realizing he’d never heard him laugh before, couldn’t help laughing himself. It sounded like Caleb hadn’t laughed in so long that the sound itself had somehow gathered dust.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Caleb said, chuckling, pressing one skinny hand to his heart. “And look, you did get a cat after all!”

Fjord snickered, and stirred his hand in the water. The catfish bussed her rounded nose against his fingers, and let him pet her head once. He shook his hand dry, and asked, to no one in particular. “Ain’t she cute?”

The catfish’s mouth popped open and closed again, as if she were trying to say hello. Fjord imitated her, mouth open, mouth closed.

“You should give her a name,” Caleb said. “It’s only polite.”

Fjord looked up, slightly embarrassed. Caleb was still smiling. Fjord looked back down at the catfish, at her muddy back and flashy red tail fin. “Think she’d mind being called Caleb?” he asked.

Caleb sputtered. “Ah, no, thank you. That would get confusing, I think.”

Right. Fjord grinned. He'd forgotten Caleb would be coming with them from now on.

A soft _ting_ noise rang from the brass pot, and then another. The catfish was bumping her whiskered nose against the walls, exploring her cell. Fjord resolved to find her a bigger space to swim around in. “Oh, I got it,” he said. “Pinto. Means ‘painted’. She looks like someone painted her, doesn’t she?”

Caleb climbed up to his knees and leaned closer, his rusty curls dangling over the water. “She does. Jester will like that. Maybe she’ll draw her for you.”

“Yeah, she’ll draw her on an open-face sandwich with a fork in her eye,” Fjord grumbled, cradling the pot tighter against his chest. That finally wrangled another wheezing chuckle from Caleb.

For a long, calm moment, they watched Pinto slithering through the water.

“Y’know,” Fjord said, “she doesn’t look too comfortable there. Wish I had a bigger tank.”

“Well, you can banish and call her as you like,” Caleb reminded him. “But, we could take her down to the Ustaloch for a little swim. You should practice sense-sharing anyway.”

“That’s the thing where you go all hazy and see through your cat?”

“Yes.” Caleb stood, and scuffed some of the charcoal symbols out with his boot. “Let me get my coat.”

He instructed Fjord on how to dismiss Pinto and call back, and made him practice three times. It required a quick gesture, a thought of the creature, a dip into a pocket plane. Fjord settled on a short, sharp whistle, and once the whistle could banish and summon Pinto at will (the poor fish started to look a little tired of the constant teleporting) they departed together for the Ustaloch.

By the angle of the sun, it was nearing midday – a crisp, clear day, colder than it appeared. They walked to the lakeshore, Fjord peppering his teacher with occasional technical questions, until they arrived at a muddy hillock overlooking a narrow stretch of abandoned beach. The water there was still and murky, only the tiniest shiver of wind stirring its surface. Fjord whistled; Pinto appeared a foot above the water and dove in, landing with a satisfying splash. She swam freely, lazily, making figure eights in the water.

“Okay,” Caleb said, dusting off his hands. It seemed like teaching magic was either a natural talent or something he had done before; he spoke with confidence and ease, “Get down on your knees, and take my hands.”

Fjord blinked. “Wait, what?”

“Your eyes will tell you that you are moving, but your body will disagree,” Caleb explained. He knelt down in the muck, offering up his hands. “You would be far from the first to pass out or throw up.”

Slowly, Fjord joined him, trying not to sulk too much about the mud oozing between his leathers. First the charcoal, now this – he was beginning to understand why Caleb smelled like kitchen compost. Magic was a dirty business. He knelt, and let Caleb take his hands.

“It helps to have something to hold on to,” Caleb said. “Okay, now. Close your eyes. Can you sense where Pinto is?”

Fjord obeyed, and breathed out. He felt a little blinking wick of magic at the side of his consciousness, like seeing a lamplight out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah. Got ‘er.”

Caleb’s voice continued, soft and low. “Reach for her. See if she will let you in.”

The light was skittish – it kept darting out of his vision. He tried a half-dozen times, but the moment he began to grow frustrated, he felt Caleb squeeze his hand. “Don’t squirm around so much,” he chastised. “They are fragile little characters, familiars. Don’t scare her.”

Fjord nodded, and then remembered not to move his head. This time, he reached out for the light again, but stopped halfway to grasping it. He made a gesture of invitation, without intrusion – more like listening at the edge of a conversation, or holding out an upturned hand.

The darkness lifted; he saw a rippling forest of lake weeds, stones and bubbles rushing past him, dark, flashing shapes in the brown and the blue. He darted quickly, straight ahead, but with a wobble that reminded him of a ship. The muscles around his eyes throbbed as he strained to gather it all. The image wrenched sharply to the right, and Fjord was pitched clean out of it. He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting his stomach as it threatened to crawl straight up his throat.

He made a noise midway between a groan and a hiccup. Something warm touched his temple, moving up and down. Caleb. Fjord had crumpled forward into their joined hands, and Caleb was now holding his head aloft, stroking his hair.

“Don’t throw up on me, please,” he said, his voice crisply irritated.

Fjord worried that shaking his head or speaking would trigger exactly that, so he rested where he was, breathing slowly until his stomach settled. Then he sat up straight, and shut his eyes again.

This time, he sank into the strange vision almost immediately, and woke immersed in the Ustaloch. Pinto swam through the murky shallows, her pace slower than before. Fjord let himself drift with the back-and-forth-wave of her tail, and he tried not to resist when he was dragged to the left again. The strain on his eyes, he realized, was from trying to squint or pull focus – but he was not in control of the creature’s gaze to that extent. Pinto dove into the muck, nosing around to unearth a few weeds and slurp them up. Fjord watched them vanishing under his field of vision and gave a slightly disturbed laugh.

 _Go out a little deeper,_ he thought. _Just a bit._

Pinto obeyed, swerving into the depths of the Ustaloch. Away from the shallows, the water was clearer. He could see the dark, curved undersides of distant boats, the shadows of birds landing on the surface. Fjord practiced with easy commands, then finer movements, until he could tilt and dive and turn in Pinto’s form with only the slightest delay. But for the constant, unpleasant sensation of pebbles and earth and mud under his knees, it was a perfect illusion of swimming.

He felt a pained smile cross his face. He’d missed this – and he hadn’t quite realized how much.

Caleb squeezed his hands again, softly, this time. “I’m alright,” Fjord said – and then flinched upon not hearing his own voice. He was using Pinto’s ears, not his own. That was just – odd.

It wouldn’t be fair to make Caleb worry, so Fjord asked Pinto to swim back towards him and then scout around the shallows. He let himself linger in her senses for a while longer – as long as he could bear – and then pulled away, lapsing briefly into darkness, and then into light, and then – blue, again?

Fjord blinked, and the shapes came back into focus. Caleb was staring at him intently, and Fjord was about to ask – but opening his mouth pulled a jolt of pain from his brow and another shiver of nausea up from his stomach, so he abruptly shut his mouth again. He tried once more, and met the same result.

“I think you’ve been in there too long,” Caleb teased. “You’re acting like a fish, now-“

He opened and closed his mouth, imitating Pinto’s wide-eyed expression. Fjord would have shoved him – tousled his hair or something – but his headache pulsed even more furiously, and so he just clung to Caleb’s hands for a moment longer, trying to orient himself on dry land.

Despite his teasing, Caleb did not let go until Fjord pulled away, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Damn,” Fjord finally wheezed. “That’s pretty intense.”

“It can be, yes. And very useful, at times. The headache should go away after a bit. Maybe get Jester to – you know –“ he mimed the gestures of a healing spell.

“Will do,” Fjord said.

Caleb helped him to his feet, letting his hands hover around Fjord’s shoulders until they were both standing steady. Fjord looked out at the water, and searched until he found Pinto. She blended in well with the murk – only her bright red fin gave her away.

“Are you all here, Fjord?”

He snapped to attention, looking back at Caleb. “Yeah,” he said, thoughtlessly. He added, after a moment, “Go on ahead. I’ll catch up. Thanks.”

Caleb stuffed his hands in his pockets, and gave Fjord a searching look.

“I mean it, really,” Fjord said. “Thank you.”

For a moment, Caleb didn’t move, giving no indication he had heard. Then he waved his hand dismissively, as if brushing the conversation aside. “No, no, I do not doubt that you are serious. Don’t mind me.”

He turned away, scratching the back of his neck. He strode across the beach and up the muddy bank, heading in to town. Fjord watched him go, frowning, and hoping the others would manage to corral Caleb into a bath before dressing him up. If they were too aggressive he’d probably flat-out run for it. He was a prickly, fragile thing; too much attention of any kind would scatter him like dust in a gale. 

There was a fine way to deal with creatures like that. Less aggressive, Fjord thought. Listening at the edge of a conversation, with a hand held out and upturned.

Fjord called Pinto back to her pocket plane with a swift, sharp whistle. He gave Caleb a ten-minute head start, and then followed him back to the inn to treat them both to breakfast.


End file.
